The book draws on the extensive research into private landlords conducted by the authors over the past two decades. This includes projects funded by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, the predecessor departments to the Department for Communities and Local Government, Scottish Homes, and the Economic and Social Research Council.
It fills a major gap in the literature about an important actor in housing provision and the built environment. Most of the recent work on private landlords has been published as research reports and there is a lack of book length scholarly study aimed at an academic rather than a policy audience.
Peter Kemp is Barnett Professor of Social Policy at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of St Cross College.
The authors are leading academic experts on privately rented housing in Britain, a subject that they have been researching separately and together since 1978 and 1979 respectively. They have conducted a succession of quantitative and qualitative studies of private landlords and are the authors of numerous reports and other publications on this topic.